Sunday, October 24, 2010

If you follow me on Twitter or Facebook then you’ll know that on Saturday the 16th, I slept in a haunted house. When I first booked the trip I thought, “What an awesome thing to do for Halloween!!” and as the day got closer my thoughts slowly turned to, “A haunted house??? What the heck am I thinking!!?” I’m happy to report that I survived.

I’m sure many of you have heard about the story of Lizzie Borden. You may have even recited the saying, “Lizzie Borden took an axe and gave her mother 40 whacks. When she saw what she had done, she gave her father 41!” How horrid right?!? If you aren’t familiar with the story then you can read about it here.

When we first arrived at the Lizzie Borden Bed and Breakfast we were delighted to see how authentic it seemed. The rooms were filled with floral Victorian furniture, floral wallpaper and even more floral carpets. I definitely felt like I was thrust back into the Victorian Age. We reserved the attic bedroom of the maid, Bridget Sullivan. Again, the room was full of florals, an old wood chest, a small rocking chair and this extremely creepy, heavy, cast iron, cat statue with glowing green eyes that stood about a foot tall. My boyfriend said, “Oh that cat is CREEPY!” to which I replied, “Oh yea it is! Why don’t you knock it over or something then?” He looked at me like I was crazy because what would knocking the cat over do for us? Nothing. Anyway, there will be more on the cat a little while later ;-)

After checking in and getting our room settled we decided to go check out the Oak Grove Cemetery to see where Lizzie and her family are buried. The cemetery sign said it closed at 4:30, but we still decided to enter at about 5:30. We finally found the grave site and hopped out of the car to take some pictures. As we were getting ready to leave the grave site, we heard some weird mumbling, almost like whispers in the wind. We looked around for other people, but couldn’t find any. Both being skeptics, we chalked it up to a group of people outside the cemetery we’re probably talking loudly as they passed by, though we could not see them.

Once we returned to the house, we were treated to a tour of the entire house with our housemates and given a bit of background about the house, the murders and some ghostly happenings that have occurred. Our tour guide, Eleanor, told us that once, while the owner was staying in our room, the little rocking chair moved from over in the corner to right beside the bedside, almost like someone had been watching her sleep. Weird!!

After the tour we were introduced to our very first séance! How fun! A séance in a real haunted house! A few weird things happened to me during the séance, 1) I felt like someone touched my face when I was observing the séance from the other side of the room, 2) I felt a very cold draft 3) I smelled lavender which the medium explained was the type of soap that Mrs. Borden typically used. Now being the skeptic that I am, I came to the conclusion that what I had experienced was really a muscle twitch, someone opened a window or door, and there was lavender scented spray in the bathrooms. Regardless, the séance was a bit eerie. We were able to communicate with Mr. and Mrs. Borden and ask them questions through the medium. We found out who the real killer was and how the whole thing went down. Was it really Lizzie? You’ll have to find out by staying at the house yourself.

After the séance we all retired to our rooms for the night. Surprisingly, I fell asleep quite quickly and although I awoke a few times throughout the night, but I still felt well rested. When the alarm went off in the morning, my boyfriend sat up quickly and said “Oh my gosh! The rocking chair moved!!” At this point I was ready to run out of the house leaving my belongings behind, but then I sat up, saw that the rocking chair had not moved and that he was just trying to play a little joke. What I did notice was that the creepy black, cast iron cat had been knocked down. I looked at my boyfriend and said “Yeah, very funny!” He claimed that he didn’t move the cat and that maybe it got knocked over when he moved the luggage the previous night. We decided to go get a shower before breakfast and both left the room for the bathroom at the same time, showered, and then returned at the same time. When we entered the room we noticed that the cat had been knocked over AGAIN!! Now I know it was not my boyfriend because he left the room at the same time as me and came back at the same time as well. And I would assume it wasn’t one of the other housemates because we hadn’t told anyone about the first time it fell over. Was it a ghost? I guess we’ll never know!

We then went downstairs a breakfast that was similar to the breakfast that those who were murdered had the morning of the murders: Johnny cakes, fruit, and coffee, along with your typical breakfast staples: eggs, sausage, and home fries. Breakfast was delicious and Will was an excellent cook!

After breakfast we began our hour ride to Salem! Look for my next blog post about Salem, Mass. later in the week!